I remember when I was young deciding I wanted to train my agility on the Gnome course. It took a solid chunk of time planning out the journey, then actually getting there took what felt like hours. Prior to this I had never been as far as even the front gates of Taverly and mostly spent my time in Lumbridge/Al Kharid Castle/East Varrock, so this was like a full-on Lord of The Rings travel distance. The Gnome city felt like a super alien and foreign land, and I was thinking I had better do all the agility I want now because this was a once in a lifetime trip lol. One of my fondest RS memories and eventually being back at the Lumbridge castle courtyard after an equally long return journey felt very comforting. I even remember the second time I decided to make that same trip, felt like I was going to film the sequel to a movie haha.
THIS. As a kid in 2004/5 I was planning my trip from Port Sarim to Varrock for like weeks - both mentally and inventory-wise preparing for the grand journey, stocking up on runes just in case somebody attacked me 🤍💯
Wow, this comment sparked some serious nostalgia. Days of clicking the members-only gates next to Taverley and the Dark Wizard's Tower, finally getting membership from my parents and trekking across the map. These are the strongest memories of my childhood, particularly the warm comfort of Lumbridge after a long and dangerous cross-map hike. Thanks for this @First name Last name.
Increased draw distance and the fact that we have all memorized the entire map to the point we know it in our sleep is definitely why it feels smaller.
Still to this day, i can close my eyes and imagine walking from Lumbridge, to Varrock, to Falador, it's amazing, as if i'm physically there. And i notice when i remember this, my mind forgets the edges of the screen, as if they didnt exist.
And most people don't play like we did as kids. It's so much easier to do anything. As a kid I remember everything was a major grind. I sold willows and flax and made bank. But it took months to get anywhere. Now days you hop on, kill a few people or merch. It's not the same running around killing stuff and skilling type of game it once was. It's a everyone's over powered with quest helpers and wiki. I had 2 internet explorers going barely able to get by with my 512mb ram and dial up internet struggling to get runetip to work.
I only play OSRS, but I remember back in the day when I was a kid playing this game, I'd literally just go on adventures with random people where we'd just follow each other everywhere on the map talking to each other or doing roleplay stuff. The game felt so much more centered around finding new things and traveling the world, and really felt a lot more social. Everyone focuses on grinding now, bossing, getting a ton of GP, making their accounts impressive, and it's not like people weren't doing that back in the day, but it feels like a lot of people forgot how this game used to be. I miss the days of house parties being actual parties that people would spontaneously have and invite others to. People would come to your house, especially if you had a combat ring which was always my goal, and just have fun talking and fighting in the ring. Now people use POHs in the house party world for nothing but teleporting, pool of rejuvenation, prayer training and the occasional other skill related thing. This is the game that taught me so much of the internet culture I grew up with and know to this day. I learned "noob" and "lol" and so much more basic parts of the internet's vernacular just by people either using them around me a lot, or me explicitly asking what it meant, and people usually would tell you because terms like that were fairly newer opposed to today. This game also got me really good at typing with one finger (cause I didn't know there were other ways), which translated into me being decent at actual typing nowadays when I figured out how to actually type (admittedly, I don't type perfectly to how they say you should, as I only use my index finger, middle finger and pinky for shift and enter on my right hand, but use my entire left hand). And I even learned a lot of just English vocabulary from playing the game. My point is, this game was a whole different thing to me back in the game. It was like another world to explore to me, while I was kind of just stuck in an apartment complex with not many friends I'd do things with outside. It let me be social while there wasn't much socialness in real life at the time. And it gave me a sense of working towards a goal for the first time. I remember days of spinning flax for money and I remember really wanting an obby maul, so I was constantly leveling up my range by crossbowing tzhaar people by getting them stuck on the other side of heat vents. I remember doing the holiday events because I thought the items looked cool sometimes and wanted to have cool stuff to wear, not to mention just enjoying the events themselves. I remember that one Halloween event that was like an obstacle course, and grinding that for a bit to get stuff from it. And it also is what got me into watching UA-cam. I can't recall many UA-camrs at the time who uploaded RuneScape videos, but I remember watching all sorts of different PKing compilations and people killing bosses that I wish I knew how to kill or even get to. I remember all the RSMVs and the impact that had on my music taste at the time. I remember the funny skit type videos people would make. I almost spent as much time watching stuff on UA-cam as I did playing the actual game. I also had an obsession with reading all the cool stuff they'd add to the game on the RuneScape website. They had like a wiki built into the website if I remember correctly, and I'd have fun just going through all the cool items, weapons, monsters, places, and other stuff just to see what was all in the game. There were so many things I didn't ever experience until now that I'm an adult and willing to actually try at them. I couldn't have ever imagined getting a fire cape and killing what was the hardest boss in the game, TzTok-Jad. Now it's like an expectation for you to do that in the current game, and seems really easy now that things like switching prayers and inventory management are just basic parts of the game to learn and master. Used to be I'd just marvel at it and watch people do it on UA-cam because I was scared of trying it myself or didn't think I could do it. I probably couldn't have given that I didn't really have any sense of strategy for the game. But yeah, this game has impacted me so much growing to be who I am now. I remember going to the house party world for the first time as an adult and expecting to see people having actual parties, but now it's all just the big wigs who probably run some RWT underground shit who just constantly host for people to use their to standard maxed houses for its resources. I miss the days when we were all just kids, and this was our first nerd thing we were all big into. I sometimes wish I could relive that kind of forgotten way of playing the game, but maybe it's best to move on.
I made a profile to respond.. I feel you, this is coming from a player from before 2006.. still to this day I love it. If you ever want to adventure together again I am PUR3 LAZY on OSRS and 2 OLD 4 TH1S on RS3. Never bossed, so there are new things for me to explore also!
@@gregcain5292 glad to hear it greg! bossing is fun but a learning curve for sure. combat in this game is so much different compared to any other game i can think of. I'll add you on OSRS, I'm LuxImperium.
@@Vid_Master yup. really wish sometimes i could throw a house party and have random people come over and fight in the fighting ring while chatting, without them leaving and complaining because of me not having an altar or the teleport they wanted
Back in the days when those musicians on the side of the road weren't just there for decoration, but a viable way to quickly regenerate run energy and make your trips across the map slightly faster.
Yeah, you'd actually get groups of people stopping at them and having little chats while travelling. The abundance of teleporting really hurt the social aspect of the game in that way.
I do think that the requirement of Underground Pass to access the elven lands is a good thing. No matter how easy it is to teleport there, the ptsd of that four hour quest for the first time sticks.
the underground pass was my best adventure on runescape, I stubbornly / lazily did it with only 34 and then 47 agility to do the ending jumps across the rock walkaway area, it was a really hard quest at my low combat level but it was so fun being alone and without supplies in a dangerous and unknown cave system with only RuneHQ to help me find my way to the end.
Ah, the good old days when you didn't leave your chosen 'hometown' unless you were prepared for the hike, or needed to....lumby to varrock to buy a wanted item....not there? Then join a 'player train' to walk to Seers. Especially useful for newbies who didn't know the route by heart and could get a guided tour....Varrock to Ardougne with stops in Falador, Taverly, Catherby and Seers
One of the best reasons to level magic was to get some teleports to help navigate. I remember the first time I could teleport to Camelot and didn't have to navigate white wolf mountain. It was an amazing feeling.
@Hobomaster I still remember mining and selling coal in Falador for weeks because I really wanted that rune (g) outfit. My parents didn't allow me to play more than one hour a day so this was a significant time spend in Falador.
Except it really wasn't the good old days. Nostalgia is a hell of a thing, but spending the vast majority of your time in the game just traveling around places to be able to get into the already extremely long and time consuming grinds really didn't feel great. I remember being young and sharing my PC with my brother, we'd have an hour at a time each and as much as we both loved runescape, you couldn't do *anything* with that one hour at a time, and it wouldn't be unusual that when it became 'our turn' again, we'd no longer feel like doing that one thing we spent the last hour setting up for.
I remember my first time getting membership because I told my parents that I beat Dragon Slayer, I walked my ass all the way from Lumbridge to Ardougne just to see that Zoo, and I finally got to see all the membership-only land that I only fantasized about looking on the map.
The map felt massive when I got membership for the first time as a kid, Lumbridge to Ardounge felt like a genuine trek. I still remember the feeling of wonder
Back in the day, I used to walk literally everywhere because I was in poverty in OSRS until I started selling Nat runes I would make. I literally never teleported. Since I got back in OSRS and am slightly mroe intelligent, I do not have money issues anymore and can teleport freely and I just don't know how I could do it back then. I used to play OSRS so unoptimized back when it was Runescape 2. Some of the shit I don't have patience for is the fast way of doing the same thing 16 years ago but I would do slowly.
@@remainprofane7732I remember hearing all these stories about Kandarin, and all the things you could do there, and when I finally got members, it was so nostalgic to remember all the things my friends told me about membership places, and all the little lies they told (I was poor and couldn't afford member as a kid). Even basic stuff like gnome drinks, or the gnome village maze, felt like such a mystery to me. I'll never get that experience again in a game, that feeling of wonder.
I remember when I was 10 in 2006, I received The official handbook for Runescape as a Christmas Gift. There was a map section of all of Runescape in the handbook, and I would use that handbook to explore around Runescape and map out of journey. Such Nostalgia.
One point that I thought of while watching this video was the world map. It was not available in game until 2008. Previously you had to open a separate window with the general map and really plan out how to get to a destination. Definitely added to the adventure feeling. It was a real pain though with the speed of computers and the internet at that time. I can also remember using the map provided by the Lumby general store to find my away around the basic F2P cities. I felt so lost when I died and lost that map haha!
Not knowing where you are on the map was also a big part. Running around looking for landmarks to figure out exactly where you are really makes you fee lost. I think part of the reason I'm so good with maps is because I spent so much time staring at the Runescape map on a second window.
It's interesting players had an issue with the lumby home teleport. If I remember correctly I believe the home teleport was originally released as a way for players to get out of places if they encountered a bug and were stuck somewhere. Prior to this, players who experienced bugs like getting stuck outside the map had to contact a Jmod to teleport them back to the mainland which sometimes could take an incredibly long time(and this actually happened a lot back then). This was a simple fix that helped everyone and especially new players that got lost.
I remember this argument too. Looking back, I never really understood the issue with the teleport. It was just to Lumbridge and timegated, so shouldn't really be that bad... It was 06 though, and people were used to doing things the hard and slow way :P
As somebody who played a ton at the time, getting stuck somewhere from a bug was definitely NOT a common occurrence and had nothing to do with the Lumby teleport.
@@essay8634 one of my accounts got teleported into the Varrock castle fountain at lv 50. I waited so long for it to get fixed that I just started a new one. I don’t even know if it was ever fixed. I remember begging a guy to cast teleother on me and offering my entire 12k bank. But assuming he was telling the truth, he couldn’t target me from where I was. My next account (and current main) later got stuck behind the Prif walls (long before Prif was a place) but luckily, the home teleport had been added by then. I still have screenshots of it somewhere. It’s easy to say something doesn’t happen when it doesn’t happen to you. Most players don’t own original Holiday rares; you wouldn’t call them common. Yet tens of thousands of them exist. Some players even have multiple. Thousands of people emailing Jagex about stuck accounts would be a massive issue for as small a company as they were at the time, given every single one would have to be handled manually by a human being.
This is part of the reason I think the nostalgia factor is so high in OSRS. I can teleport around the entire map of RS3 without ever really experiencing the world whereas I’ve only recently restarted on OS, and having to walk everywhere helps to build the at sense of ‘adventure’ and the amount of interaction with the world.
Got some plans for the scale theory too! I actually had a chat with the author of the RS novels about this, considering he founded a lot of the theories due to how he describes the world in his books. Atm I'm just looking to expand a little on it. I kinda want to explore the difference between osrs and rs3 lore-wise, I just need the time to sit down and actually do it, lol
I remember feeling SO cheated when they created lodestones! Half of the reason I trained magic was to collect all of the travel spells. I think I made it to Ardourgne before they added lodestones. Now it doesn’t mean anything that I have to travel from one side of the map to the other :/
As someone who regularly uses lodestones for clue scrolls, I can tell you they really aren't as useful or convenient as magic book teleportation - there's a good reason they don't cost anything to use, and you can recharge them with tiny amounts of vis wax. Other than a few out-of-the-way training spots like the Player Owned Farm, Priffdinias, and so on, most of the lodestones are far enough away from activity hubs that magic book teles are still the way to go for maxing efficiency.
@@Dargonhuman who gives a shit about max efficiency? walking an extra few seconds doesn't mean anything when you are playing a game and that is a terrible way to look at any experience. anyone who says 'max efficiency' is hurting the game over all.
@@comyuse9103 people who have limited time to play give a shit about getting as much done as possible within that limited time. Thise few seconds of walking mean 5 to 10 less ores, logs, arch mats, bars or other resources generated. When doing Treasure Trails, all that walking between clue locations means not being able to do one whole extra scroll. I play Runescape to accomplish things like training skills, TT clues, doing quests, etc. It's not a walking simulator, and it's not like the world is all that interesting to look at anyway.
I remember Jagex talking about making the map larger eventually back with NXT update. Guess they just bandage fixed it by putting mist on top of oceans
I used to advocate for scaling up the world, I do think it's running out of space for more quest locations. But I wouldn't mind if they made a new game set in the world of Gielinor which featured a larger world. It would be a more feasible effort than actually pushing such a huge change as an update.
thats why they are adding realms now such as freneskae (land of the mahjarrat) or yu'biusk (bandos homeland) they capitalize on the stories being told about those lands in these days, and imo i think its great because we finally get to know the deities more and everything around them. in osrs saradomin used to be just a name ''flying'' by in ones mouth. and these days you get their full backstories, which to me seem really interesting.
@@ItsNifer Zeah is also like 95% a ghost town (continent?). The issue with a new large area is how do you make it so most of that area wasn't just a complete waste of dev time? You also can't make it too good, otherwise you get rs3 priff 2.0, where people rarely leave the area. I think that's why they haven't tried a new large continent like Zeah on rs3.
@@RockBandRS At that point it's a culture problem among the player base. Everything we do now is done for maximum efficiency, probably because that's what adulthood is like. I distinctly remember being mocked by some maxers around 2013-ish for gathering my own potion ingredients to train herblore, even though buying them in bulk on the GE felt less special.
I only recently found your channel but man, you have instantly become my favorite RS content creator! Love your essay videos as well as the history ones, you have the ability to make it so entertaining. Regarding the topic at hand, I actually have the opinion that the world in RS3 is still insanely large. It's just that previously the world was unfathomably enormous, impossible to grasp the full extent of it. I still remember the first time I visited the Tree Gnome Stronghold after I became a member. I honestly walked for hours just because there was so much to explore on the way - it felt like the longest trek ever. And there was still like 80% of the world left to explore. Now, with every single pixel explored, I certainly prefer the ability to use quick teleports/travel options to almost every place of the world. It's because I put in so many hours exploring and getting familiar with the world. And I do think that it's okay, seeing as I'm an experienced adventurer (I'm a World Guardian, after all...). Unfortunately, ultimately I don't think that RS3 is a great game for new players. Even if we change some requirements (e.g. lodestones region quest-locked), the new player is generally forced to play the game through our experienced player efficiency lense, and thus might see those additional requirements as a huge drawback. I don't think it can ever be possible for a new player to experience the same (or just comparable) feelings we did when we started playing, and that makes me a bit sad ;(
Hahah dude, I get 100% how you feel about Tree Gnome Stronghold. As a skiller, there was a long period of time prior to Lodestones where I had to walk to the hunting area above Eagles Peak, and it felt like it took forever. I do kinda miss that.
Now a days most games, just throw u right into the action. No need for grind. RIP RS I was hopeful Jagex would bring it back big time with mobile. But it only invited some of the OGs back that still have an hour or two to spare.
Different playstyles As a kid I played for adventure and just used my imagination to have fun so walking was the best. Now I play for in game goals and walking would just be a massive unfun chore to get to the fun parts
@@MaakaSakuranbo I don't have as much time to play games as I used to, so any time I can save getting from Point A to Point B is welcome. Besides, I've been playing RS for 20 years now - yes, I was there within months of what is now Classic RS going live - so through quests and skilling, I know the game world better than my own irl neighborhood, so other than the occasional graphical update, there isn't anything new for me to see on the journey that I haven't already seen hundreds of times.
When Lummy was as busy as the GE and going to the Gnome village was a journey you would prep and plot. As you went out if felt like you were wondering out of civilization. It was really neat back when Lumbridge felt like a central hub, you could actually see the large amount of players coming and going on their own adventures.
I play RuneScape some days now. 18 years of account and still not nearly maxed I had 14 years at that time in 2004 and played only f2p. But sometimes I pass around some places and memory just hit me hard. Like Al kharid, specially the mines where I grind my lvl 85 minining and dropping iron ores right there, or someone else just come around and you trade them your ores and they will go and bank it (faster then drop everything). When I used to cut and light long lines of willow (could be oaks not sure) near the varrock entrance. When we have to run back to lumbridge to get the 30 coins to go to Al kharid, or even worse before I learned that there was a bank in the third floor I did the whole path for the upper entrance (near the mine). I remember to theorize with my two other friends what the members skills could do, and we came up that with slayer you could kill every player depending on your lvl. I remember one time I saw zezima (or maybe I just saw a screenshot of it) in the fally bank. I remember to play my early days of RuneScape with a dictionary near by so I can interact with other players and sell my itens (I'm from Brazil and thanks to RuneScape I've learned English). I remember in 2006 to send an email to jagex asking if they want me to translate the whole game to Portuguese, they laugh at me that time. I love this game and I hope it never die!
9:05 the nostalgia hit me. I remember going through goblins, chickens, cows... Then being attacked by a bear near Varrock (Idk if it was aggressive or I just attacked it for no reason :D). Just goofing around, picking random trash, and having a blast
My biggest gripe was essentially the LodeStone Network. The LodeStone Network literally ruled out so many teleport options that players might consider acquiring, while it's literally FREE to obtain too. All you had to do was walking to them...
Game experience is more important than convenience. Just like in real life, easy doesn't mean better. When you make everything easy, you remove all the fun experience. On the other hand, if you make everything hard without thinking about the quality of experience, you will make people quit. It should be in the middle. It should not be easy but the hard part should be a fun type of challenging. Also one thing to say. Notice when phones became so advanced that people don't talk to each other anymore? It's the same in games. I remember when people chat all the time in training places. Players now talk only in clan chats and it's not the same. One advancement like phones in real life remove the other part of human experience. Group chats in runescape removed the fun of socializing in the game. SO sad....
There were also lots of arbitrary fences and barriers in between areas, like the one separating Lumbridge Forest from the Swamp, or the GE from the bandit camp, that were eventually removed or had a pathway cut through them. Run energy has also had massive buffs over time, making even Energy Potions and Musicians feel unnecessary in most situations.
Ahh I forgot to mention energy potions and musicians. I remember when the latter was released. They were such a nice QOL, but now I can't remember the last time I used one...
It’s very situational, I think the draw distance in a lot of cases actually makes the world look bigger in itself. However I do agree with fixing those areas that are suppose to be more hidden in certain situations, such as seeing other rooms you aren’t suppose to see yet.
Wait until you start poking around the area you're standing in with the FreeCam... I was doing the Underground Quest and saw a bit of ... something on the edge of my minimap so I went to look at it with FreeCam and found out it was part of the next leg of the quest that I hadn't gotten to yet, and some of the set pieces spoiled a huge plot twist.
If you think it’s small start a new character and walk to yanille, hell even ardougne. It’s brutal. That being said the lodestone system and various ways of transportation make it seem easy.
As a kid the f2p world felt huge and was more than enough but you're so right that now everything feels much smaller. I have a similar opinion with quests, they used to take a good few hours as you read the dialog and figured out what to do, gathered the materials yourself. Now you just look up a guide and buy all the items you need before you start
I remember when I joined RS back in 2005 and exploring was just me getting lost constantly. But it was a good feeling, because there was a sense of wonder and danger. Even before the warning signs on dangerous places, I wandered into the Wilderness once by mistake lol. While I certainly miss my bewilderment days, I wouldn't trade away our teleports. The ease of access that allows us to move about lets us complete many things faster, get to places we need to be quicker. Honestly I often cursed having to walk to many areas or waste runes to teleport to them. While RuneCrafting existed when I joined, it still wasn't ideal because it took a long time or a lot of money to harvest enough essence or make a sufficient stock of runes. Magic itself was a pain in the rear even. These days Runes are one of the things you will have lots of, even without trying. But you'll more likely use it for other spells that mean more than teleports like enchants, High Alchemy, and Lunar/Ancient magicks, unless there was a location you could reach far faster than with the Lodestones or Jewelry teleports. Even new players are taught at the start of RuneScape now to immediately search for those Lodestones to make their lives easier.
I played RuneScape as a kid, but was young enough that the memories are foggy. 15 years later I came back and player RS3 for a good while. Recently I switched to OSRS to play group ironman with some friends. I missed the lodestones for a bit but now that I have a decent magic level I *really* appreciate the teleports. And being an iron woman, law runes are still pretty scarce since none of us can craft them yet.
People still have the option to run to wherever they need to go or just not use certain teleports. It's kinda like Skyrim where adventuring to places can be really satisfying, but there's also times where you just want to fast travel somewhere to do something quick.
This is so funny to me as a newer player. I literally walk everywhere. I dont have any fast teleports methods except for lodestones. For me i really enjoy going through the world and finding new things, hearing the music change, seeing the lights change, spotting penguins and implings randomly. So for me it feels really big and perfect. But i can see how it can feel small to somebody who has everything.
I can see a lot of nostalgia for these things in the comments. But those asking for change, just remember there are some of us still living and experiencing those things you're nostalgic for.
I think I'm the only person here that didn't play as a kid and started playing as an adult lol. I only began my OSRS journey about 2 years ago. It's amazing and I wish I would have played it as a kid! For me this was a very insightful video, I enjoyed learning about how the game was back then!
God the difference between 2006 and 2012 seems like such a long time and the difference between 2015 and 2021 timewise seems like nothing. Is this what getting older is?
I remember playing with my cousin who'd never played before, decided she wanted to go to the pet store which was at the time in Taverley. We walked all the way from Lum through Draynor, Port Sarim, up through Fally and along that fateful wall between what we discovered to be the disconnect between mems and non-mems. At about 9 or 10 years old, we discovered our first paywall. To say we were confused would be an understatement. "How could someone show you something as exciting as a pet store, but not let you go in???"
I remember my first trip from Lumby to Varrock feeling like a pilgrimage, and from Varrock to Falador like an odyssey. As a kid the world definitely felt huge.
Never played rs1 but i remember when the lodestone network first released. At that time i had unlocked most teleport methods, fairy rings, crystal seed, both spell books, the hot air ballons, the mine cart, spirit trees and many pieces of teleport jewelry. While i like the expanded lodestone network (i dont have all the lodestones unlocked I'm missing 3) i feel that it makes some of the other teleports obsolete, why would i want the crystal seed if i can just use the lodestone that's close by and that kind of thing.
It makes me sad that the game will never feel as magical as when we were young and it was new. It was so much more fun when no one knew how to play. The wikis for games are extremely useful but combine them with the growth of the internet and essentially every game’s mystery is dead. A lot of players just look everything up about a new game they get and, at least in my eyes, completely ruin the games for themselves. Even for Elden Ring, I purposely don’t look anything up about it because I want to learn myself but many people just google search something and it tells them instantly. Pretty stale IMO
That's the first thing i noticed when getting back into RS in 2019. Between the increased draw distance and how packed the world is with stuff it all felt a little claustrophobic. While i do use lodestones and teleports for grind intensive stuff i still do spend a lot of time walking from place to place. Mainly because the happy walk animation is adorable but it's also fun to take in the scenery and see what other players are up to along the way.
you know, one of my favorite things about RPGs and MMOs is just what you've explained, and yet I've never thought to do that with RS. maybe I'll try it next time I have to get around
@@skia-morph i've recently started a new character and decided i will never touch the lodestone network. it is bad game design that takes away so much from MMOs
I'm fully in line with the opinion that distances need to be increased, but it's difficult to do properly. So many open world games these days are huge but boring because nothing fills those spaces, and Runescape is in theory much better because it's so economical with its space. But you're right: seeing everything at once makes everything feel small. What they need to do is greatly expand the world and then give us a reason to have to go out into the seemingly-empty world, but not forcing us to do so to get to certain important hubs by giving us accessible travel methods. The places beyond a hub need to be less traveled and feel like an adventure to go through.
Which is more valuable? Respecting player time and reducing the amount of dead weight a game has? Or to impose a sense of scale and travel, selling the fantasy of the world?
There's some serious nostalgia watching those Classic clips. Those were some good times, wandering around with no clue what you're doing, but still having fun.
I honestly love the size of the runescape map, you don't have mounts and sprint is limited so it means it feels like you're actually covering real distances despite going quite moving quite slowly. Though I only really play OS so half of these things don't affect me
4:00 and don't forget, even when teleports were added, runecrafting didn't exist, and there were no law rune spawns, not even in that building in the wilderness. You wanted those, you had to go kill monsters and hope for the drop.
I noticed the effects of teleportation in ESO of all things. I played before One Tamriel and didn't want to waste money teleporting to wayshrines, so I was exploring on foot. It made the journey from the starting city to Ebonheart feel rather major, even if it's in the same zone. But once I discovered you can teleport for free by interacting with the wayshrines and was given a horse for reaching a level, everything immediately felt much smaller. I think there's a sweet spot teleportation needs to aim for to have a great sense of place. Where it's convenient to meet your friends but not convenient enough to get you exactly to the adventure you're going on.
Lol no way man. I died a lot with my whole bank when i was just a little noob. I died tons of times to goblins and spiders. Then i finally found a bank in varrock. A place on the other side of the world lol. During the times i wanted to bank my stuff, i died alot to bears, a misclick on a guard or a mage when walking to varock everytime. I alleways wanted a bank in lumbridge.
I loved when these methods of transportation were new and relatively undiscovered. It was super cool to be zipping around the map and people not understanding how you could do that.
I remember when Raids came out and there was no obvious way of getting there for the first time. It felt cool walking through the swamp with fifty other players, sometimes taking wrong turns and getting lost on the way. Haven't really had that experience since (maybe if I'd been playing when Theatre of Blood came out?)
I miss the 2010ish days, those were amazing. I remember being in 4th grade, pking before & after school... Run home to play some RS. Some guy said he would buy me membership because he liked the way I pked lmao and actually did it and didn't scam me! That was amazing, never heard from him again after which was weird. Bought RS membership from my parents home line back in the day. Never thought I'd ever get so addicted to the game and maxing out 6 accounts lol. I miss this game but life has really moved on to grind all day.
To be fair, before teleportation existed in classic, you only really had 4 places to go; lumbridge, al kharid, varrock and falador. The distance even walking to get from 1 side of the world to the other would've been quite generous as opposed to right now or in OSRS.
You can actually use Colony Teleports from the divination outfit to get to that spot even faster. I really liked exploring and finding new dangerous areas and having to run away in terror from areas like Brimhaven Dungeon or the Wilderness. Now that I'm maxed and can teleport and then mobile surge/Dive everywhere I go the game feels so small because I've memorized the world and can't be remotely challenged by wandering mobs, unlike when it was still RS2 and I was easily killable in my full mithril
Really thoughtful and interesting stuff! You offer a lot of fantastic insight into spatial design in the context of game design in this video. Even with all the teleports in RuneScape 3 now, I still find myself adventuring and running long distances for fun when I go killing mobs such as wolves; or bot-killing in the wilderness lol. Certain other additions such as the surge forward magic move make movement pretty fun to me, I like finding the most efficient paths. While the increase in render distance may have sone wonky side effects as you mentioned, and may in some ways make the world as a whole feel smaller/closer together, it also makes the immediate “world” of space around your character feel bigger. I love the ambiance provided by being able to see the surrounding scenery. I’m really fascinated by your point about how the game map was not designed for such far-reaching “sight” (rendering), and the different examples of parts of the world that were supposedly far apart being basically adjacent.
This is the first video I have watched from your channel and I am happy to sub. I had never played any Runescape until 2021, and then only OSRS. I can totally understand why people would be a little concerned about the ease of travel. But as a new player with no idea what I was doing, I must say it was still an adventure! I didn't even know that most jewelry had teleports... I had intentionally stopped myself from using the wiki for the first couple of weeks so I could get a more natural experience. Sometimes I will just wander around the map to see everything and explore. Of course it has also been fun to find all the different teleport and travel methods. Unlocking spirit trees, canoes, portal rooms, fairy rings, hot air balloons, teleport spells, jewellery. I really enjoyed it, and I like planning efficient travel methods for things like tree runs or some money making venture. On the otherhand I can totally see why people would be a little upset by the casualisation of the game. But I think it's fine, and if you're playing ironman, at least in old school, you really have to work your bum off to try and travel. You can't just buy runes and jewelry off the GE to get around easily. Mind you, when it came to getting graceful... That was a real eye opener to what Runescape is. That was the first really big grind I had done in the game because stamina pots aren't cheap for a noob and walking is just so painful when you're used to running around. Having done hundreds of laps of canifis rooftops, it really made me understand that this game rewards dedication and planning. Especially planning to afk some skill. But the grind was worth it as I got the agility pet too! My cute "giant" squirrel lol. I enjoyed this video, it was an interesting topic to discuss I think most of us wouldn't think about too much. I might share it with some veterans and see what they think. PS. On the off chance that you read this comment: when you say precident it is pronounced press-e-dent. My partner is Finnish and we help eachother with pronunciation stuff all the time for both languages. I suck at Finnish lol. So don't take this harshly, you have a beautiful accent and are clearly extremely fluent in English, but I am guessing that it may not be your primary language?
Thanks a lot for watching and thanks for subscribing. :-) Welcome to the game as well, glad to see RuneScape still attracts new players. There's a lot to talk about regarding the game and its long history; you'll find a lot of its functions are dated from the past 21 years of existing. It's an aging process other games don't really experience the same way, with RS being from such an "ancient" time of online games...
I remember one day my brother asked me to put on my lightest gear and follow him, we were going on an adventure. He handed me about 20 of these weird rocks and told me I had to keep them in my inventory. We made the long walk from varrock towards falador, but instead of taking the usual path once we passed barbarian village we took a right towards this giant mountain with wolves and dwarves. After getting lost a couple time we finally found this weird destroyed ruin structure, and when we got near it he randomly disappeared! He came back a minute later and handed me this strange talisman and told me to use it on the rock. I did and entered the altar and it absolutely blew my mind as a child. I had no idea these weird destroyed runes had narnia inside. He got upset at me though when he kept telling me to click on the altar on the middle and something amazing would happen, and I kept telling him it told me I couldn't - my runecrafting level wasn't high enough. Once we finally figured it out we took an equally long trip down southwest of falador to an altar I could actually use. This one wasn't nearly as exciting inside, it just looked like a hill. When I finally clicked on the altar and made my first runes I remember looking at my skillbook to see how many levels I would have gotten from spending hours on this journey. It was only a few hundred experience. I decided then I would never level the skill again if it took hours to get almost no experience. The game definitely felt bigger back then.
I have to say, the map never really felt tiny to me because it is so packed, not even in RS3 where you can see quite far. It's a suspension of disbelieve thing for me. Even back when I couldn't see Al Kharid from Lumbridge, I know it was just a stone's throw based on how short the walk was. Hiding islands makes a lot of sense tho. It's a bit like a map that shows everything enlarged, but you can walk on it. Some games that rely on travel taking time but also don't want to leave the player without the comfort of fast travel have found a ingenious solution: don't let the player take items along with them. Examples of this include EvE Online and Death Stranding. Runescape could have gone down this path and it might have been quite successful that way, but now it's too late to change it.
4:15 not to mention the cost of law runes back then. I remember teleporting was a luxury reserved for established players. Law runes were 800-1.2k a pop when I started and that was a lot then, for me at least. Edit: Sometimes I grinded the hobgoblins by the crafting guild for them.
i never heard someone complain about teleports before. I do remember that as a kid the vast majority of my playtime was walking, and i HATED IT because it meant it took that much longer to level up. Now as an adult, I started an Ironman account and I am making much greater progress than I ever did on my main account and it feels like so much more fun because im not spending 80 percent of the time walking from Lumbridge to Varrock
So I've been a truck driver for 5 years. Meaning I've driven across the entire United States many times. It sounds really weird, but I perceive the size of the country way differently than I used to. I can get to pretty much any major city on memory alone, and I perceive 500 miles as a single work day. If you live in LA, it feels like new York is really far away. But, to me, that's just a single work week. It's nothing. I also know landmarks and places to stop all along the way. I told my mom that I didn't realize how close Las Vegas is to LA. She was confused, so I told her it's only like 270 miles. She laughed, because that's really far to her. To me, it's just what I do before lunch.
ironically I've found as a returning player who started in 2007 and then like... plays once every year or two into my adulthood, when I popped in and found that lodestones were a thing, it actually helped me walk around more! since teleports became so complex, and I was a casual old player who would forget fairy ring codes or what ring did what do wear between my months of not playing, I'd rather use a lodestone to get to the general area and then just... parse it out myself. it kinda feels like I'm new again everytime I go back!
I remember playing rusnecape when I was 12 (24 now) and hearing my older brother talk about the grand exchange. It sounded so cool. At that point I was purely home grown. My armor, food, fire to cook the food, weapons, were all made by me. I wanted to check out the GE, but was scared by how far away it was and if I somehow die on the way there. I remember getting there the first time and being mesmerized by the amount of people there and what I could do.
As someone who played since 2005, I totally get where this is coming from. In the early years the world felt gigantic and traveling took planning and time. By the time I quit and moved to OSRS, lodestones oversimplified just about everything and obsoleted years worth of quest rewards. Originally, you could significantly speed up the time to get from point A to point B as you leveled magic and completed quests, but that felt like earned organic growth. Walking to a lodestone and permanently being able to return there within seconds doesn't give that feeling. The draw distance was part of the problem that made everything feel smaller, but it was also their habit of cramming new content into random bits of the map instead of expanding like they used to. There was no room for the world to breathe. Swapping over to OSRS really brought back a lot of that magic, and I hope they never bring back the lodestone network outside the context of leagues.
I remember Home Teleport came out maybe a few months after my brother got stuck in the building where you get Boots of Lightness. He planned to fill his inventory, so he dropped his knife and the spider web blocked him in. He was stuck in there until we rescued him 😂
Getting stuck is part of the fun. My favorite memory from Dark Souls was accidentally ending up in Ash lake when looking for the second bell. I realized suddenly that I was stuck down there until I could get back up. It felt like being there, THAT's immersion. If you ask people if they want convenience they'll say yes, but at the end of the day convenience costs too much. It makes games worse, and less immersive. It makes games less fun.
Another factor that I think about is how much more full the map is. There's not just a new thing around every corner but likely 2 more things before you even make it around the corner. A world needs some empty places to feel big, and most of those have been filled in over the years.
@@rswillmissit yeah it makes sense you get a reward for discovering the area. Could be a quest/series of quests, even already existing quests not even new ones necessarily.
Thing is, once vis wax came out, it highlighted what could've been: lodestone network giving 1 free "home teleport" with a 30min cooldown, BUT you could fuel the lodestone with vis wax and spend those charges for instant teleportation
I remember that, back when I started in 2005, I was on my way to Varrock for the first time. I had barely escaped the mages when I was killed by a mugger. The loss of my first 100 coins was an additional slap in the face.
I've seen the same thing in other games. In Morrowind, if you mod in a higher view distance (distant terrain), you really notice just how small the world really is. You could actually make the argument that it is better with the default - that is what it was designed for and the low view distance, as well as the hilly terrain, really help make it feel much bigger than it is. In Ragnarok Online, if you use a hacked client, you can zoom out further than you normally could. This allows you to see that the indoor areas for a town are actually all on the same map, placed just out of view of each other. Doesn't make the world feel any smaller - it's actually huge - but it does give you a glimpse behind the curtains.
I always thought it was amazing how different it felt as a kid. I remember it taking FOREVER to walk from Varrock to Fally or even Lumby to Draynor Village! But revisiting it (OSRS), especially with RuneLite being able to zoom out way farther, I noticed that you can pretty much see Draynor Village from Lumby Castle. And it takes just a few minutes to get to Fally... Really Interesting how memories that seem so vivid can still be so "off"
its bigger than just a matter of taste, its something that disrupts the entire economy in many online games. most of the population wouldn't even get as far as they do without these teleports and would forever stick to safer areas without a higher level guide to show them or community like a guild to show them. which in turn in many of these games gives a lot of life to the economy, especially when you can sell teleports to places and people selling teleports have to then buy currency/catalyst items to perform them. Or simply people offering "protection" as they walk you from one place to another
The walking makes it so much more enjoyable imo it's how you get curious and explore the world. I don't know how many times I wondered off some path and found something I've never seen before.
I remember coming into the town centres and finding players had an entire business around teleporting. You would pay them and they would send you on your instantaneous way. A magic taxi service. It was pretty cool. I'm usually quite mixed when it comes to fast travel. For the most part I prefer not to use it, so in games like Skyrim etc I walk most often. I only start using fast travel if I end up doing a lot of back and forth. Even then I prefer to use the wagon's etc. But with games getting bigger and bigger nowadays and time being more pressed, I find I have to use fast travel a lot more and often I feel that I miss out on whole parts of the game. You don't get to appreciate the scenery as much as you zoom past it towards the 15th fetch quest you have to finish just to complete the dailies.
When I was 10 back in 04, my friends and I thought RuneScape was massive, so my bestie and I took turns planning out road-trips to new regions. The mystique and atmosphere as a child playing this game was only rivaled by something like Majora’s Mask. It lost that, and I’ve tried many times to return to the game, but I’ll always be haunted by the nostalgia.
I recently returned to OSRS, having not played since I was like 14 some 13 whole years ago (oof I hate time). Having to start fresh, it is kinda nice walking to and from everywhere. Sure, the stamina system for running is pretty brutal by modern standards and leveling magic takes time, but it has been fun walking around the world and really feeling just how massive it feels despite how comically cramped it all is in reality. If Jagex stated they wanted to increase the size of the world somewhat to help compensate for how convenient travel is these days I 100% would be on board with that. Still, I find it funny that they feel the need to shvoe all of these fast travel methods into the game when walking from one end of the world to the other takes about as much time as it takes someone to just traverse a major city on foot in World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XIV. Even at its absolute worst OSRS never manages to feel as tedious or padded out by travel despite having just as many QoL traveling options as other MMOs. As a mild aside, I do think a sprawling world helps give so much life, mystery and sense of community to an MMO. It is a shame that practically no one uses text chat in the game now and you rarely ever feel an attachment to the players around you since everyone is constantly teleporting around. Feels less like an interconnected world at endgame and more like a bunch of levels you individually select.
Cramming in new content into places that are already crammed has served to make locations feel smaller when the distance between them is non-existent. Various parts of Kandarin, Misthalin and Asgarnia are just huge conurbations and has been exacerbated by visual updates that increased draw distances. Heck, Taverley and Burthorpe might as well be one settlement now.
Without running it was a challenge just to travel town to town at a low level. I kind of remember that game loop and it was actually fun. Made everything more strategic.
As someone who bounces between OSRS and RS3, I think they both have their merits, but OSRS is my preferred. I finally did the OS Construction grind and have an in-game house with teleports all over Gielinor. The cost was high, I still had to unlock the teleport spells for the portals. Then I had to acquire enough runes for 100 casts of each. If the in-game free Home Teleport spell actually took me to my house, I would think this would be the best option for replacing Lodestones. I have no reason to do this in RS3 with 80 Construction because of the Lodestone network.
RS is an old game. What used to be a fairly well populated world slowly got stuffed with people and buildings, and ways to get around quickly began to trickle in. It had the ability back in its halcyon days to add new areas to offset this, the addition of the Troll Stronghold and Fremmnik areas, the Kharidian Desert, Feldip and Piscatoris just to name a few. But the current continent is getting full. Those areas eventually got drawn in and bordered off and now are also stuffed with things. OS tried making a brand new continent, but it was half baked from its inception and only now after several years of development and community support is it anywhere near usable, and even then only for those who know it's high level areas and content. It's just old now. Settled in. No real way to fix it. The only thing that could bring back that spark is a whole new world of Gielinor. New map, new areas, a fresh start and a blank parchment to build on. But that would be making a whole new game, and may end up being a flop and a waste of investment.
This only feels true because 1. we are familiar with the map, 2. we typically teleport around the map which makes accessing places that takes 5+ minutes of walking time instead take three minutes, and 3. we are used to grinding stuff for so long that a 10 minute walk doesn't seem that long in comparison. There's a reason the only boots to teleport to Rellekka are very sought after. Even though it takes around 3-4 minutes to walk from Seer Village to it, it feels like a huge chore and it's wasting time.
I just recently noticed this while doing the Sea Slug quest in osrs. When rowing out to the guy who's "stranded" on the island you can see Entrana right in the background. I guess maybe there could be sharks in the water so he can't swim the short distance? but he could still yell for help. lol
I've always had mixed feelings about the lode stone network, I like there convenience I think Jagex could have implemented it better by tying to the construction skill as unlocks so that way there is a use to the skill other than gate keepings most quests in modern day Runescape. Compared to Osrs, PoH's feel borderline useless other than the Aquarium and the Costume room now that you can also access it from the bank. Even Guilded alters are kinda overrated compared to what they used to be.
I played a regular account for like 2 weeks because all my friends where playing it. They taught me to go to the GE for teleports and the game felt... hollow. A game where you grind for the grind... i quit and came back after a couple years when GIM came out. Now it feels like i am playing the game how it was intended to be played, and i am hooked
This seems similar to the discussion of fast travel in games like Skyrim. I would say that the easy way out is to just not use the option. Other people will move around faster, yes. But if you have fun while playing, you are winning.
Having played in the early days and more recently with RS3 (and dozens of other MMOs with actually massive worlds), I actually kind of enjoy having the lodestones and that the map doesn't take forever to cross. Unlike when I had lots of free time when I was younger to play the massive world MMOs, I do not have that luxury anymore - So having a short walk from this place to that place is great for me and the Lodestones help when I end up wondering to much because I got distracted with something I saw while on my way to another city, or when a friend wants to meet in Falador or Varrock.
After experiencing so many games advertising garguantuan maps, devoid of naught but the same 5 enemy mobs and some random rewards in camps, i've learned to appreciate runescape's design. Teeming with unique quests that each tell a story.
I get where you’re coming from. My main MMO is WoW, and I remember the thing with Cataclysm adding in flying mounts for the main areas of Azeroth and the whole debate about world size. Honestly, I never felt that Azeroth was any smaller after that, even with all the teleports I had around the world. That’s because the world itself was just that large and had that much to explore. What I’m saying is that if RuneScape wants to make the world feel larger, I say just make the world physically larger, add more things to do in it that aren’t purely quests.
Looking back in 2006. I remember grinding my magic level so I wouldn't have to walk. Just typing this sparked a memory of "taxi" where I would follow a player walking to a different town so I wouldn't have to click. Good friends I only knew for a few minutes and never again. THAT'S RUNESCAPE
Countless memories, like a whole entire era with long forgotten top players who made music videos, skits and overall just bolstered the community. Simple fun that lasted forever it seemed, one of the few games of my life where i felt my time was not wasted or idly passed
this may sound like fake but I tell you.. it's real. I've been playing this game for 17 years, 2 accounts in total (because I lost my OG account) but now, at the age of 27, it's my first time buying a membership, since I was a kid I always wanted to explore beyond those damned gates that say "you must be on a members world to do that" but I couldn't because I had 0 money, when I was 18 I opened a New account just to have a nostalgia trip on my favorite MMORPG, I played once in a while but at the end I couldn't make time to play because of my university and work. Now at my 27 years I decided finally that it was time to explore beyond those gates and it has been a joy, I felt like a kid again and I could not be more happy to finally explore that other part of RS. I love this game, it holds a special place in my memories.
'look how close tuska was to landing near bandit camp' I wanna point out that this is a world eater, that was so big we were literal ants on her back, and yet her size on the rs world seems tiny. And no, being 'submerged' is not an excuse given how it was done and how the cutscene looked. 100% agree on the home teleport. That was kinda dumb, but not as dumb as lodestones.
![GeoGuessr but it's the Runescape map [GeoWizard plays OSRSGUESSR]](/img/n.gif)
I remember when I was young deciding I wanted to train my agility on the Gnome course. It took a solid chunk of time planning out the journey, then actually getting there took what felt like hours. Prior to this I had never been as far as even the front gates of Taverly and mostly spent my time in Lumbridge/Al Kharid Castle/East Varrock, so this was like a full-on Lord of The Rings travel distance. The Gnome city felt like a super alien and foreign land, and I was thinking I had better do all the agility I want now because this was a once in a lifetime trip lol.
One of my fondest RS memories and eventually being back at the Lumbridge castle courtyard after an equally long return journey felt very comforting. I even remember the second time I decided to make that same trip, felt like I was going to film the sequel to a movie haha.
This was as enjoyable read, ty
Thank you for the story, it also sparked similar experiences in my youth and I am grateful for that
THIS. As a kid in 2004/5 I was planning my trip from Port Sarim to Varrock for like weeks - both mentally and inventory-wise preparing for the grand journey, stocking up on runes just in case somebody attacked me 🤍💯
Wow, this comment sparked some serious nostalgia. Days of clicking the members-only gates next to Taverley and the Dark Wizard's Tower, finally getting membership from my parents and trekking across the map. These are the strongest memories of my childhood, particularly the warm comfort of Lumbridge after a long and dangerous cross-map hike. Thanks for this @First name Last name.
The simple problem is that we're not idiot kids anymore. The game has grown up just like its players have.
Increased draw distance and the fact that we have all memorized the entire map to the point we know it in our sleep is definitely why it feels smaller.
I failed geography but I remember the whole osrs map by heart, including all underground/other regions.
Teleports everywhere is what makes it feel small
Still to this day, i can close my eyes and imagine walking from Lumbridge, to Varrock, to Falador, it's amazing, as if i'm physically there.
And i notice when i remember this, my mind forgets the edges of the screen, as if they didnt exist.
@@TheJustinShowAndCo And the fact that buildings are much larger(in some cases gigantic) compared to their old models.
And most people don't play like we did as kids. It's so much easier to do anything. As a kid I remember everything was a major grind. I sold willows and flax and made bank. But it took months to get anywhere. Now days you hop on, kill a few people or merch. It's not the same running around killing stuff and skilling type of game it once was. It's a everyone's over powered with quest helpers and wiki. I had 2 internet explorers going barely able to get by with my 512mb ram and dial up internet struggling to get runetip to work.
I only play OSRS, but I remember back in the day when I was a kid playing this game, I'd literally just go on adventures with random people where we'd just follow each other everywhere on the map talking to each other or doing roleplay stuff. The game felt so much more centered around finding new things and traveling the world, and really felt a lot more social. Everyone focuses on grinding now, bossing, getting a ton of GP, making their accounts impressive, and it's not like people weren't doing that back in the day, but it feels like a lot of people forgot how this game used to be.
I miss the days of house parties being actual parties that people would spontaneously have and invite others to. People would come to your house, especially if you had a combat ring which was always my goal, and just have fun talking and fighting in the ring. Now people use POHs in the house party world for nothing but teleporting, pool of rejuvenation, prayer training and the occasional other skill related thing.
This is the game that taught me so much of the internet culture I grew up with and know to this day. I learned "noob" and "lol" and so much more basic parts of the internet's vernacular just by people either using them around me a lot, or me explicitly asking what it meant, and people usually would tell you because terms like that were fairly newer opposed to today. This game also got me really good at typing with one finger (cause I didn't know there were other ways), which translated into me being decent at actual typing nowadays when I figured out how to actually type (admittedly, I don't type perfectly to how they say you should, as I only use my index finger, middle finger and pinky for shift and enter on my right hand, but use my entire left hand). And I even learned a lot of just English vocabulary from playing the game.
My point is, this game was a whole different thing to me back in the game. It was like another world to explore to me, while I was kind of just stuck in an apartment complex with not many friends I'd do things with outside. It let me be social while there wasn't much socialness in real life at the time. And it gave me a sense of working towards a goal for the first time. I remember days of spinning flax for money and I remember really wanting an obby maul, so I was constantly leveling up my range by crossbowing tzhaar people by getting them stuck on the other side of heat vents. I remember doing the holiday events because I thought the items looked cool sometimes and wanted to have cool stuff to wear, not to mention just enjoying the events themselves. I remember that one Halloween event that was like an obstacle course, and grinding that for a bit to get stuff from it.
And it also is what got me into watching UA-cam. I can't recall many UA-camrs at the time who uploaded RuneScape videos, but I remember watching all sorts of different PKing compilations and people killing bosses that I wish I knew how to kill or even get to. I remember all the RSMVs and the impact that had on my music taste at the time. I remember the funny skit type videos people would make. I almost spent as much time watching stuff on UA-cam as I did playing the actual game.
I also had an obsession with reading all the cool stuff they'd add to the game on the RuneScape website. They had like a wiki built into the website if I remember correctly, and I'd have fun just going through all the cool items, weapons, monsters, places, and other stuff just to see what was all in the game. There were so many things I didn't ever experience until now that I'm an adult and willing to actually try at them. I couldn't have ever imagined getting a fire cape and killing what was the hardest boss in the game, TzTok-Jad. Now it's like an expectation for you to do that in the current game, and seems really easy now that things like switching prayers and inventory management are just basic parts of the game to learn and master. Used to be I'd just marvel at it and watch people do it on UA-cam because I was scared of trying it myself or didn't think I could do it. I probably couldn't have given that I didn't really have any sense of strategy for the game.
But yeah, this game has impacted me so much growing to be who I am now. I remember going to the house party world for the first time as an adult and expecting to see people having actual parties, but now it's all just the big wigs who probably run some RWT underground shit who just constantly host for people to use their to standard maxed houses for its resources.
I miss the days when we were all just kids, and this was our first nerd thing we were all big into. I sometimes wish I could relive that kind of forgotten way of playing the game, but maybe it's best to move on.
Got me in the feels.
I made a profile to respond.. I feel you, this is coming from a player from before 2006.. still to this day I love it. If you ever want to adventure together again I am PUR3 LAZY on OSRS and 2 OLD 4 TH1S on RS3.
Never bossed, so there are new things for me to explore also!
I had the same exact experience as you did, great memories :D and we all have to move onto bigger things, but never forget to be a kid sometimes
@@gregcain5292 glad to hear it greg! bossing is fun but a learning curve for sure. combat in this game is so much different compared to any other game i can think of. I'll add you on OSRS, I'm LuxImperium.
@@Vid_Master yup. really wish sometimes i could throw a house party and have random people come over and fight in the fighting ring while chatting, without them leaving and complaining because of me not having an altar or the teleport they wanted
Back in the days when those musicians on the side of the road weren't just there for decoration, but a viable way to quickly regenerate run energy and make your trips across the map slightly faster.
Yeah, you'd actually get groups of people stopping at them and having little chats while travelling. The abundance of teleporting really hurt the social aspect of the game in that way.
O M F G
CORE MEMORY UNLOCKED WTF I FORGOT ABOUT THEM AHAHAHHAHAHAHA
You can't regenerate run with them anymore?
@@toxicvillain You can, but there's less reason to run around with all the teleportation available. Like was said in the video--
@@InedibleMuffin what video?
I do think that the requirement of Underground Pass to access the elven lands is a good thing. No matter how easy it is to teleport there, the ptsd of that four hour quest for the first time sticks.
Walking the elven lands after that felt so magical, I miss those days
The light maze in the later quest tho 😭
the underground pass was my best adventure on runescape, I stubbornly / lazily did it with only 34 and then 47 agility to do the ending jumps across the rock walkaway area, it was a really hard quest at my low combat level but it was so fun being alone and without supplies in a dangerous and unknown cave system with only RuneHQ to help me find my way to the end.
@@Vid_Master very brave 😅 I love these stories
At LEAST 4 hours
Ah, the good old days when you didn't leave your chosen 'hometown' unless you were prepared for the hike, or needed to....lumby to varrock to buy a wanted item....not there? Then join a 'player train' to walk to Seers. Especially useful for newbies who didn't know the route by heart and could get a guided tour....Varrock to Ardougne with stops in Falador, Taverly, Catherby and Seers
One of the best reasons to level magic was to get some teleports to help navigate. I remember the first time I could teleport to Camelot and didn't have to navigate white wolf mountain. It was an amazing feeling.
only to be lured into the wild and getting dropped. rip my first rune scimitar
The player trains! This really hit me in the feels.
@Hobomaster I still remember mining and selling coal in Falador for weeks because I really wanted that rune (g) outfit. My parents didn't allow me to play more than one hour a day so this was a significant time spend in Falador.
Except it really wasn't the good old days. Nostalgia is a hell of a thing, but spending the vast majority of your time in the game just traveling around places to be able to get into the already extremely long and time consuming grinds really didn't feel great. I remember being young and sharing my PC with my brother, we'd have an hour at a time each and as much as we both loved runescape, you couldn't do *anything* with that one hour at a time, and it wouldn't be unusual that when it became 'our turn' again, we'd no longer feel like doing that one thing we spent the last hour setting up for.
I remember my first time getting membership because I told my parents that I beat Dragon Slayer, I walked my ass all the way from Lumbridge to Ardougne just to see that Zoo, and I finally got to see all the membership-only land that I only fantasized about looking on the map.
The map felt massive when I got membership for the first time as a kid, Lumbridge to Ardounge felt like a genuine trek. I still remember the feeling of wonder
Back in the day, I used to walk literally everywhere because I was in poverty in OSRS until I started selling Nat runes I would make. I literally never teleported. Since I got back in OSRS and am slightly mroe intelligent, I do not have money issues anymore and can teleport freely and I just don't know how I could do it back then. I used to play OSRS so unoptimized back when it was Runescape 2. Some of the shit I don't have patience for is the fast way of doing the same thing 16 years ago but I would do slowly.
@@remainprofane7732I remember hearing all these stories about Kandarin, and all the things you could do there, and when I finally got members, it was so nostalgic to remember all the things my friends told me about membership places, and all the little lies they told (I was poor and couldn't afford member as a kid). Even basic stuff like gnome drinks, or the gnome village maze, felt like such a mystery to me. I'll never get that experience again in a game, that feeling of wonder.
I remember when I was 10 in 2006, I received The official handbook for Runescape as a Christmas Gift. There was a map section of all of Runescape in the handbook, and I would use that handbook to explore around Runescape and map out of journey. Such Nostalgia.
One point that I thought of while watching this video was the world map. It was not available in game until 2008. Previously you had to open a separate window with the general map and really plan out how to get to a destination. Definitely added to the adventure feeling. It was a real pain though with the speed of computers and the internet at that time.
I can also remember using the map provided by the Lumby general store to find my away around the basic F2P cities. I felt so lost when I died and lost that map haha!
Days without tabbed internet browsing to boot
Not knowing where you are on the map was also a big part. Running around looking for landmarks to figure out exactly where you are really makes you fee lost. I think part of the reason I'm so good with maps is because I spent so much time staring at the Runescape map on a second window.
yup, man that sucked. LOL
Awww I lol
I had a map printed out next to me to see how I'd navigate to my destination xD
It's interesting players had an issue with the lumby home teleport. If I remember correctly I believe the home teleport was originally released as a way for players to get out of places if they encountered a bug and were stuck somewhere. Prior to this, players who experienced bugs like getting stuck outside the map had to contact a Jmod to teleport them back to the mainland which sometimes could take an incredibly long time(and this actually happened a lot back then). This was a simple fix that helped everyone and especially new players that got lost.
I remember this argument too. Looking back, I never really understood the issue with the teleport. It was just to Lumbridge and timegated, so shouldn't really be that bad... It was 06 though, and people were used to doing things the hard and slow way :P
As somebody who played a ton at the time, getting stuck somewhere from a bug was definitely NOT a common occurrence and had nothing to do with the Lumby teleport.
@@essay8634 one of my accounts got teleported into the Varrock castle fountain at lv 50. I waited so long for it to get fixed that I just started a new one. I don’t even know if it was ever fixed.
I remember begging a guy to cast teleother on me and offering my entire 12k bank. But assuming he was telling the truth, he couldn’t target me from where I was.
My next account (and current main) later got stuck behind the Prif walls (long before Prif was a place) but luckily, the home teleport had been added by then. I still have screenshots of it somewhere.
It’s easy to say something doesn’t happen when it doesn’t happen to you. Most players don’t own original Holiday rares; you wouldn’t call them common. Yet tens of thousands of them exist. Some players even have multiple. Thousands of people emailing Jagex about stuck accounts would be a massive issue for as small a company as they were at the time, given every single one would have to be handled manually by a human being.
@@essay8634 Almost like it's possible for different people to have different experiences, and neither be wrong. Crazy and novel idea I know.
@@FirstNameLastName-rh6zc In this case one of us would have to be wrong, since I stated it so extremely: "nothing to do with the Lumby teleport"
This is part of the reason I think the nostalgia factor is so high in OSRS. I can teleport around the entire map of RS3 without ever really experiencing the world whereas I’ve only recently restarted on OS, and having to walk everywhere helps to build the at sense of ‘adventure’ and the amount of interaction with the world.
Yep. Easyscape. Who needs law runes anymore?
Don't be fooled, late game osrs is just as teleportscape as rs3.
Can just walk everywhere if you want lol
@@Benzinilinguine i love it
@@Benzinilinguine True. But I grew up, got a job and thus lack the time for OSRS
And here I thought it was going to be a video about scale theory, like how all of elite dungeon can fit on a tiny island.
hi seto
Got some plans for the scale theory too! I actually had a chat with the author of the RS novels about this, considering he founded a lot of the theories due to how he describes the world in his books. Atm I'm just looking to expand a little on it. I kinda want to explore the difference between osrs and rs3 lore-wise, I just need the time to sit down and actually do it, lol
@@rswillmissit Oh sweet :O!!
I remember feeling SO cheated when they created lodestones! Half of the reason I trained magic was to collect all of the travel spells. I think I made it to Ardourgne before they added lodestones. Now it doesn’t mean anything that I have to travel from one side of the map to the other :/
@michael B ❌Respectfully disagree
As someone who regularly uses lodestones for clue scrolls, I can tell you they really aren't as useful or convenient as magic book teleportation - there's a good reason they don't cost anything to use, and you can recharge them with tiny amounts of vis wax. Other than a few out-of-the-way training spots like the Player Owned Farm, Priffdinias, and so on, most of the lodestones are far enough away from activity hubs that magic book teles are still the way to go for maxing efficiency.
@@Dargonhuman who gives a shit about max efficiency? walking an extra few seconds doesn't mean anything when you are playing a game and that is a terrible way to look at any experience. anyone who says 'max efficiency' is hurting the game over all.
@@comyuse9103 people who have limited time to play give a shit about getting as much done as possible within that limited time.
Thise few seconds of walking mean 5 to 10 less ores, logs, arch mats, bars or other resources generated. When doing Treasure Trails, all that walking between clue locations means not being able to do one whole extra scroll.
I play Runescape to accomplish things like training skills, TT clues, doing quests, etc. It's not a walking simulator, and it's not like the world is all that interesting to look at anyway.
I remember Jagex talking about making the map larger eventually back with NXT update. Guess they just bandage fixed it by putting mist on top of oceans
I used to advocate for scaling up the world, I do think it's running out of space for more quest locations.
But I wouldn't mind if they made a new game set in the world of Gielinor which featured a larger world. It would be a more feasible effort than actually pushing such a huge change as an update.
I think it would be super interesting (but a lot of development time) to make a completely new continent. Similar to how OSRS has Zeah
thats why they are adding realms now
such as freneskae (land of the mahjarrat)
or yu'biusk (bandos homeland)
they capitalize on the stories being told about those lands in these days, and imo i think its great because we finally get to know the deities more and everything around them.
in osrs saradomin used to be just a name ''flying'' by in ones mouth.
and these days you get their full backstories, which to me seem really interesting.
@@ItsNifer Zeah is also like 95% a ghost town (continent?). The issue with a new large area is how do you make it so most of that area wasn't just a complete waste of dev time? You also can't make it too good, otherwise you get rs3 priff 2.0, where people rarely leave the area. I think that's why they haven't tried a new large continent like Zeah on rs3.
We need RS4
@@RockBandRS At that point it's a culture problem among the player base. Everything we do now is done for maximum efficiency, probably because that's what adulthood is like. I distinctly remember being mocked by some maxers around 2013-ish for gathering my own potion ingredients to train herblore, even though buying them in bulk on the GE felt less special.
I only recently found your channel but man, you have instantly become my favorite RS content creator! Love your essay videos as well as the history ones, you have the ability to make it so entertaining.
Regarding the topic at hand, I actually have the opinion that the world in RS3 is still insanely large. It's just that previously the world was unfathomably enormous, impossible to grasp the full extent of it. I still remember the first time I visited the Tree Gnome Stronghold after I became a member. I honestly walked for hours just because there was so much to explore on the way - it felt like the longest trek ever. And there was still like 80% of the world left to explore.
Now, with every single pixel explored, I certainly prefer the ability to use quick teleports/travel options to almost every place of the world. It's because I put in so many hours exploring and getting familiar with the world. And I do think that it's okay, seeing as I'm an experienced adventurer (I'm a World Guardian, after all...). Unfortunately, ultimately I don't think that RS3 is a great game for new players. Even if we change some requirements (e.g. lodestones region quest-locked), the new player is generally forced to play the game through our experienced player efficiency lense, and thus might see those additional requirements as a huge drawback. I don't think it can ever be possible for a new player to experience the same (or just comparable) feelings we did when we started playing, and that makes me a bit sad ;(
Hahah dude, I get 100% how you feel about Tree Gnome Stronghold. As a skiller, there was a long period of time prior to Lodestones where I had to walk to the hunting area above Eagles Peak, and it felt like it took forever. I do kinda miss that.
Now a days most games, just throw u right into the action. No need for grind. RIP RS I was hopeful Jagex would bring it back big time with mobile. But it only invited some of the OGs back that still have an hour or two to spare.
No its not that big compared to other mmos.
Different playstyles
As a kid I played for adventure and just used my imagination to have fun so walking was the best. Now I play for in game goals and walking would just be a massive unfun chore to get to the fun parts
Sadly in general that has become the norm. People wanting everything instantly and not seeing the journey as part of it
I think if you could own a horse or a vehicle of some kind, traveling around everywhere would be more appealing.
@@MaakaSakuranbo I made the journey when I was 10. I've had my full fill of taking 20 minutes to get from Varrock to Ardougne.
If they release a new are i love to explore it but most of the world i have seen so much i know what to expect.
@@MaakaSakuranbo I don't have as much time to play games as I used to, so any time I can save getting from Point A to Point B is welcome.
Besides, I've been playing RS for 20 years now - yes, I was there within months of what is now Classic RS going live - so through quests and skilling, I know the game world better than my own irl neighborhood, so other than the occasional graphical update, there isn't anything new for me to see on the journey that I haven't already seen hundreds of times.
When Lummy was as busy as the GE and going to the Gnome village was a journey you would prep and plot. As you went out if felt like you were wondering out of civilization.
It was really neat back when Lumbridge felt like a central hub, you could actually see the large amount of players coming and going on their own adventures.
I play RuneScape some days now. 18 years of account and still not nearly maxed I had 14 years at that time in 2004 and played only f2p. But sometimes I pass around some places and memory just hit me hard. Like Al kharid, specially the mines where I grind my lvl 85 minining and dropping iron ores right there, or someone else just come around and you trade them your ores and they will go and bank it (faster then drop everything). When I used to cut and light long lines of willow (could be oaks not sure) near the varrock entrance. When we have to run back to lumbridge to get the 30 coins to go to Al kharid, or even worse before I learned that there was a bank in the third floor I did the whole path for the upper entrance (near the mine). I remember to theorize with my two other friends what the members skills could do, and we came up that with slayer you could kill every player depending on your lvl. I remember one time I saw zezima (or maybe I just saw a screenshot of it) in the fally bank. I remember to play my early days of RuneScape with a dictionary near by so I can interact with other players and sell my itens (I'm from Brazil and thanks to RuneScape I've learned English). I remember in 2006 to send an email to jagex asking if they want me to translate the whole game to Portuguese, they laugh at me that time.
I love this game and I hope it never die!
9:05 the nostalgia hit me. I remember going through goblins, chickens, cows... Then being attacked by a bear near Varrock (Idk if it was aggressive or I just attacked it for no reason :D). Just goofing around, picking random trash, and having a blast
ahaha true bear years depend on lvl
I did this in RSC. Hit me hard too
My biggest gripe was essentially the LodeStone Network. The LodeStone Network literally ruled out so many teleport options that players might consider acquiring, while it's literally FREE to obtain too. All you had to do was walking to them...
it essentially made half of the content in the game pointless. even an entire skill is worthless to have now.
@@comyuse9103 let me read your mind; Construction.
Game experience is more important than convenience. Just like in real life, easy doesn't mean better. When you make everything easy, you remove all the fun experience. On the other hand, if you make everything hard without thinking about the quality of experience, you will make people quit. It should be in the middle. It should not be easy but the hard part should be a fun type of challenging.
Also one thing to say. Notice when phones became so advanced that people don't talk to each other anymore? It's the same in games. I remember when people chat all the time in training places. Players now talk only in clan chats and it's not the same. One advancement like phones in real life remove the other part of human experience. Group chats in runescape removed the fun of socializing in the game. SO sad....
There were also lots of arbitrary fences and barriers in between areas, like the one separating Lumbridge Forest from the Swamp, or the GE from the bandit camp, that were eventually removed or had a pathway cut through them.
Run energy has also had massive buffs over time, making even Energy Potions and Musicians feel unnecessary in most situations.
Ahh I forgot to mention energy potions and musicians. I remember when the latter was released. They were such a nice QOL, but now I can't remember the last time I used one...
@@rswillmissit musicians legit were op for like a year or two lol.
Yeah, even having the option to "rest" to recover run energy faster was a big change.
@@rswillmissit Mod Osborne even proposed in a livestream to completely remove Run Energy so you could run infinitely.
Do you remember which livestream this was?
It’s very situational, I think the draw distance in a lot of cases actually makes the world look bigger in itself. However I do agree with fixing those areas that are suppose to be more hidden in certain situations, such as seeing other rooms you aren’t suppose to see yet.
Wait until you start poking around the area you're standing in with the FreeCam... I was doing the Underground Quest and saw a bit of ... something on the edge of my minimap so I went to look at it with FreeCam and found out it was part of the next leg of the quest that I hadn't gotten to yet, and some of the set pieces spoiled a huge plot twist.
If you think it’s small start a new character and walk to yanille, hell even ardougne. It’s brutal. That being said the lodestone system and various ways of transportation make it seem easy.
Ardougne tablet 🤪
@@codyknight945 hahah, yeah It you have a friend
White wolf mountain is a real barrier for low level players
Lotro is way bigger
As a kid the f2p world felt huge and was more than enough but you're so right that now everything feels much smaller. I have a similar opinion with quests, they used to take a good few hours as you read the dialog and figured out what to do, gathered the materials yourself. Now you just look up a guide and buy all the items you need before you start
I remember when I joined RS back in 2005 and exploring was just me getting lost constantly. But it was a good feeling, because there was a sense of wonder and danger. Even before the warning signs on dangerous places, I wandered into the Wilderness once by mistake lol.
While I certainly miss my bewilderment days, I wouldn't trade away our teleports. The ease of access that allows us to move about lets us complete many things faster, get to places we need to be quicker. Honestly I often cursed having to walk to many areas or waste runes to teleport to them. While RuneCrafting existed when I joined, it still wasn't ideal because it took a long time or a lot of money to harvest enough essence or make a sufficient stock of runes. Magic itself was a pain in the rear even.
These days Runes are one of the things you will have lots of, even without trying. But you'll more likely use it for other spells that mean more than teleports like enchants, High Alchemy, and Lunar/Ancient magicks, unless there was a location you could reach far faster than with the Lodestones or Jewelry teleports. Even new players are taught at the start of RuneScape now to immediately search for those Lodestones to make their lives easier.
I played RuneScape as a kid, but was young enough that the memories are foggy. 15 years later I came back and player RS3 for a good while. Recently I switched to OSRS to play group ironman with some friends. I missed the lodestones for a bit but now that I have a decent magic level I *really* appreciate the teleports. And being an iron woman, law runes are still pretty scarce since none of us can craft them yet.
*ironman, those chemicals cant hide your male features
People still have the option to run to wherever they need to go or just not use certain teleports. It's kinda like Skyrim where adventuring to places can be really satisfying, but there's also times where you just want to fast travel somewhere to do something quick.
This is so funny to me as a newer player. I literally walk everywhere. I dont have any fast teleports methods except for lodestones. For me i really enjoy going through the world and finding new things, hearing the music change, seeing the lights change, spotting penguins and implings randomly. So for me it feels really big and perfect. But i can see how it can feel small to somebody who has everything.
I can see a lot of nostalgia for these things in the comments. But those asking for change, just remember there are some of us still living and experiencing those things you're nostalgic for.
I think I'm the only person here that didn't play as a kid and started playing as an adult lol. I only began my OSRS journey about 2 years ago. It's amazing and I wish I would have played it as a kid! For me this was a very insightful video, I enjoyed learning about how the game was back then!
God the difference between 2006 and 2012 seems like such a long time and the difference between 2015 and 2021 timewise seems like nothing. Is this what getting older is?
I wish I could unread this
I remember playing with my cousin who'd never played before, decided she wanted to go to the pet store which was at the time in Taverley. We walked all the way from Lum through Draynor, Port Sarim, up through Fally and along that fateful wall between what we discovered to be the disconnect between mems and non-mems. At about 9 or 10 years old, we discovered our first paywall. To say we were confused would be an understatement. "How could someone show you something as exciting as a pet store, but not let you go in???"
I remember my first trip from Lumby to Varrock feeling like a pilgrimage, and from Varrock to Falador like an odyssey. As a kid the world definitely felt huge.
Never played rs1 but i remember when the lodestone network first released. At that time i had unlocked most teleport methods, fairy rings, crystal seed, both spell books, the hot air ballons, the mine cart, spirit trees and many pieces of teleport jewelry. While i like the expanded lodestone network (i dont have all the lodestones unlocked I'm missing 3) i feel that it makes some of the other teleports obsolete, why would i want the crystal seed if i can just use the lodestone that's close by and that kind of thing.
It makes me sad that the game will never feel as magical as when we were young and it was new. It was so much more fun when no one knew how to play. The wikis for games are extremely useful but combine them with the growth of the internet and essentially every game’s mystery is dead. A lot of players just look everything up about a new game they get and, at least in my eyes, completely ruin the games for themselves. Even for Elden Ring, I purposely don’t look anything up about it because I want to learn myself but many people just google search something and it tells them instantly. Pretty stale IMO
i do take a walk in game very often and i enjoy every minute of it so chill and so fun see how places once new now all left alone 😀
That one set of magic trees below seers and place used to be hot now you have all 4 trees to yourself 🥰
Lmao l2 3tick granite or something you're wasting your time on this game if you do that
@@pakchoy9334 imagine sweating everytime you play rs just for exp gains.
Bro it's meant to have fun and enjoy, not grind your soul to the dirt.
That's the first thing i noticed when getting back into RS in 2019. Between the increased draw distance and how packed the world is with stuff it all felt a little claustrophobic. While i do use lodestones and teleports for grind intensive stuff i still do spend a lot of time walking from place to place. Mainly because the happy walk animation is adorable but it's also fun to take in the scenery and see what other players are up to along the way.
you know, one of my favorite things about RPGs and MMOs is just what you've explained, and yet I've never thought to do that with RS. maybe I'll try it next time I have to get around
@@skia-morph i've recently started a new character and decided i will never touch the lodestone network. it is bad game design that takes away so much from MMOs
I'm fully in line with the opinion that distances need to be increased, but it's difficult to do properly. So many open world games these days are huge but boring because nothing fills those spaces, and Runescape is in theory much better because it's so economical with its space. But you're right: seeing everything at once makes everything feel small.
What they need to do is greatly expand the world and then give us a reason to have to go out into the seemingly-empty world, but not forcing us to do so to get to certain important hubs by giving us accessible travel methods. The places beyond a hub need to be less traveled and feel like an adventure to go through.
Which is more valuable? Respecting player time and reducing the amount of dead weight a game has? Or to impose a sense of scale and travel, selling the fantasy of the world?
The lodestone network is so incredible. Especially because people have alot of daily stuff they got to do and it can make some things easier.
There's some serious nostalgia watching those Classic clips. Those were some good times, wandering around with no clue what you're doing, but still having fun.
Man if you don't know how it feels to walk from Lumbridge to Edgeville then I feel for ya. Pretty sure I could do it with my eyes closed to this day.
I honestly love the size of the runescape map, you don't have mounts and sprint is limited so it means it feels like you're actually covering real distances despite going quite moving quite slowly. Though I only really play OS so half of these things don't affect me
I remember running out of runes for varrock teleport back in the day and having to run to the GE. That's why teletabs were so good back then.
4:00 and don't forget, even when teleports were added, runecrafting didn't exist, and there were no law rune spawns, not even in that building in the wilderness. You wanted those, you had to go kill monsters and hope for the drop.
I noticed the effects of teleportation in ESO of all things. I played before One Tamriel and didn't want to waste money teleporting to wayshrines, so I was exploring on foot. It made the journey from the starting city to Ebonheart feel rather major, even if it's in the same zone. But once I discovered you can teleport for free by interacting with the wayshrines and was given a horse for reaching a level, everything immediately felt much smaller.
I think there's a sweet spot teleportation needs to aim for to have a great sense of place. Where it's convenient to meet your friends but not convenient enough to get you exactly to the adventure you're going on.
I think the map is awesome compared to other MMO's, far more beginner friendly
Lol no way man. I died a lot with my whole bank when i was just a little noob. I died tons of times to goblins and spiders. Then i finally found a bank in varrock. A place on the other side of the world lol. During the times i wanted to bank my stuff, i died alot to bears, a misclick on a guard or a mage when walking to varock everytime. I alleways wanted a bank in lumbridge.
I loved when these methods of transportation were new and relatively undiscovered. It was super cool to be zipping around the map and people not understanding how you could do that.
I remember when Raids came out and there was no obvious way of getting there for the first time. It felt cool walking through the swamp with fifty other players, sometimes taking wrong turns and getting lost on the way. Haven't really had that experience since (maybe if I'd been playing when Theatre of Blood came out?)
I miss the 2010ish days, those were amazing.
I remember being in 4th grade, pking before & after school... Run home to play some RS.
Some guy said he would buy me membership because he liked the way I pked lmao and actually did it and didn't scam me! That was amazing, never heard from him again after which was weird.
Bought RS membership from my parents home line back in the day. Never thought I'd ever get so addicted to the game and maxing out 6 accounts lol.
I miss this game but life has really moved on to grind all day.
I remember getting into the Karazi jungle finally and being flabbergasted how small it actually is.
To be fair, before teleportation existed in classic, you only really had 4 places to go; lumbridge, al kharid, varrock and falador. The distance even walking to get from 1 side of the world to the other would've been quite generous as opposed to right now or in OSRS.
You can actually use Colony Teleports from the divination outfit to get to that spot even faster. I really liked exploring and finding new dangerous areas and having to run away in terror from areas like Brimhaven Dungeon or the Wilderness. Now that I'm maxed and can teleport and then mobile surge/Dive everywhere I go the game feels so small because I've memorized the world and can't be remotely challenged by wandering mobs, unlike when it was still RS2 and I was easily killable in my full mithril
Really thoughtful and interesting stuff! You offer a lot of fantastic insight into spatial design in the context of game design in this video.
Even with all the teleports in RuneScape 3 now, I still find myself adventuring and running long distances for fun when I go killing mobs such as wolves; or bot-killing in the wilderness lol. Certain other additions such as the surge forward magic move make movement pretty fun to me, I like finding the most efficient paths. While the increase in render distance may have sone wonky side effects as you mentioned, and may in some ways make the world as a whole feel smaller/closer together, it also makes the immediate “world” of space around your character feel bigger. I love the ambiance provided by being able to see the surrounding scenery.
I’m really fascinated by your point about how the game map was not designed for such far-reaching “sight” (rendering), and the different examples of parts of the world that were supposedly far apart being basically adjacent.
This is the first video I have watched from your channel and I am happy to sub.
I had never played any Runescape until 2021, and then only OSRS. I can totally understand why people would be a little concerned about the ease of travel. But as a new player with no idea what I was doing, I must say it was still an adventure! I didn't even know that most jewelry had teleports... I had intentionally stopped myself from using the wiki for the first couple of weeks so I could get a more natural experience.
Sometimes I will just wander around the map to see everything and explore. Of course it has also been fun to find all the different teleport and travel methods. Unlocking spirit trees, canoes, portal rooms, fairy rings, hot air balloons, teleport spells, jewellery. I really enjoyed it, and I like planning efficient travel methods for things like tree runs or some money making venture.
On the otherhand I can totally see why people would be a little upset by the casualisation of the game. But I think it's fine, and if you're playing ironman, at least in old school, you really have to work your bum off to try and travel. You can't just buy runes and jewelry off the GE to get around easily.
Mind you, when it came to getting graceful... That was a real eye opener to what Runescape is. That was the first really big grind I had done in the game because stamina pots aren't cheap for a noob and walking is just so painful when you're used to running around. Having done hundreds of laps of canifis rooftops, it really made me understand that this game rewards dedication and planning. Especially planning to afk some skill. But the grind was worth it as I got the agility pet too! My cute "giant" squirrel lol.
I enjoyed this video, it was an interesting topic to discuss I think most of us wouldn't think about too much. I might share it with some veterans and see what they think.
PS. On the off chance that you read this comment: when you say precident it is pronounced press-e-dent. My partner is Finnish and we help eachother with pronunciation stuff all the time for both languages. I suck at Finnish lol. So don't take this harshly, you have a beautiful accent and are clearly extremely fluent in English, but I am guessing that it may not be your primary language?
Thanks a lot for watching and thanks for subscribing. :-) Welcome to the game as well, glad to see RuneScape still attracts new players. There's a lot to talk about regarding the game and its long history; you'll find a lot of its functions are dated from the past 21 years of existing. It's an aging process other games don't really experience the same way, with RS being from such an "ancient" time of online games...
i wonder if this is why i enjoyed the great gielinor run achievement as much as i did, makes you see just how big this "small" world really is
I remember one day my brother asked me to put on my lightest gear and follow him, we were going on an adventure. He handed me about 20 of these weird rocks and told me I had to keep them in my inventory. We made the long walk from varrock towards falador, but instead of taking the usual path once we passed barbarian village we took a right towards this giant mountain with wolves and dwarves. After getting lost a couple time we finally found this weird destroyed ruin structure, and when we got near it he randomly disappeared! He came back a minute later and handed me this strange talisman and told me to use it on the rock. I did and entered the altar and it absolutely blew my mind as a child. I had no idea these weird destroyed runes had narnia inside. He got upset at me though when he kept telling me to click on the altar on the middle and something amazing would happen, and I kept telling him it told me I couldn't - my runecrafting level wasn't high enough.
Once we finally figured it out we took an equally long trip down southwest of falador to an altar I could actually use. This one wasn't nearly as exciting inside, it just looked like a hill. When I finally clicked on the altar and made my first runes I remember looking at my skillbook to see how many levels I would have gotten from spending hours on this journey. It was only a few hundred experience. I decided then I would never level the skill again if it took hours to get almost no experience.
The game definitely felt bigger back then.
I have to say, the map never really felt tiny to me because it is so packed, not even in RS3 where you can see quite far. It's a suspension of disbelieve thing for me. Even back when I couldn't see Al Kharid from Lumbridge, I know it was just a stone's throw based on how short the walk was. Hiding islands makes a lot of sense tho. It's a bit like a map that shows everything enlarged, but you can walk on it.
Some games that rely on travel taking time but also don't want to leave the player without the comfort of fast travel have found a ingenious solution: don't let the player take items along with them. Examples of this include EvE Online and Death Stranding. Runescape could have gone down this path and it might have been quite successful that way, but now it's too late to change it.
4:15 not to mention the cost of law runes back then. I remember teleporting was a luxury reserved for established players. Law runes were 800-1.2k a pop when I started and that was a lot then, for me at least.
Edit: Sometimes I grinded the hobgoblins by the crafting guild for them.
i never heard someone complain about teleports before. I do remember that as a kid the vast majority of my playtime was walking, and i HATED IT because it meant it took that much longer to level up. Now as an adult, I started an Ironman account and I am making much greater progress than I ever did on my main account and it feels like so much more fun because im not spending 80 percent of the time walking from Lumbridge to Varrock
So I've been a truck driver for 5 years. Meaning I've driven across the entire United States many times.
It sounds really weird, but I perceive the size of the country way differently than I used to. I can get to pretty much any major city on memory alone, and I perceive 500 miles as a single work day. If you live in LA, it feels like new York is really far away. But, to me, that's just a single work week. It's nothing. I also know landmarks and places to stop all along the way.
I told my mom that I didn't realize how close Las Vegas is to LA. She was confused, so I told her it's only like 270 miles. She laughed, because that's really far to her. To me, it's just what I do before lunch.
ironically I've found as a returning player who started in 2007 and then like... plays once every year or two into my adulthood, when I popped in and found that lodestones were a thing, it actually helped me walk around more! since teleports became so complex, and I was a casual old player who would forget fairy ring codes or what ring did what do wear between my months of not playing, I'd rather use a lodestone to get to the general area and then just... parse it out myself. it kinda feels like I'm new again everytime I go back!
I remember playing rusnecape when I was 12 (24 now) and hearing my older brother talk about the grand exchange. It sounded so cool. At that point I was purely home grown. My armor, food, fire to cook the food, weapons, were all made by me. I wanted to check out the GE, but was scared by how far away it was and if I somehow die on the way there.
I remember getting there the first time and being mesmerized by the amount of people there and what I could do.
Like a small town kid finally making it to the big city. Truly amazing at the time.
As someone who played since 2005, I totally get where this is coming from. In the early years the world felt gigantic and traveling took planning and time. By the time I quit and moved to OSRS, lodestones oversimplified just about everything and obsoleted years worth of quest rewards. Originally, you could significantly speed up the time to get from point A to point B as you leveled magic and completed quests, but that felt like earned organic growth. Walking to a lodestone and permanently being able to return there within seconds doesn't give that feeling.
The draw distance was part of the problem that made everything feel smaller, but it was also their habit of cramming new content into random bits of the map instead of expanding like they used to. There was no room for the world to breathe.
Swapping over to OSRS really brought back a lot of that magic, and I hope they never bring back the lodestone network outside the context of leagues.
I do not recommend watching the Mist if you have an heart. Anytime I am reminded of it - I feel great tragedy at the ending.
I remember Home Teleport came out maybe a few months after my brother got stuck in the building where you get Boots of Lightness. He planned to fill his inventory, so he dropped his knife and the spider web blocked him in. He was stuck in there until we rescued him 😂
Lol, thankfully they also added a knife in that part
A mote pl0x and a willmissit video to wrap the year. How exciting 😁
Getting stuck is part of the fun. My favorite memory from Dark Souls was accidentally ending up in Ash lake when looking for the second bell. I realized suddenly that I was stuck down there until I could get back up. It felt like being there, THAT's immersion. If you ask people if they want convenience they'll say yes, but at the end of the day convenience costs too much. It makes games worse, and less immersive. It makes games less fun.
Another factor that I think about is how much more full the map is. There's not just a new thing around every corner but likely 2 more things before you even make it around the corner.
A world needs some empty places to feel big, and most of those have been filled in over the years.
Wish lodestones where a bit harder to unlock, like having them be quest unlocks or something, idk tho maybe I’m wrong.
Agreed! There are a few quest-locked lodestones, but even these feel out of place when the majority is open season....
@@rswillmissit yeah it makes sense you get a reward for discovering the area. Could be a quest/series of quests, even already existing quests not even new ones necessarily.
Thing is, once vis wax came out, it highlighted what could've been:
lodestone network giving 1 free "home teleport" with a 30min cooldown, BUT you could fuel the lodestone with vis wax and spend those charges for instant teleportation
I remember that, back when I started in 2005, I was on my way to Varrock for the first time. I had barely escaped the mages when I was killed by a mugger. The loss of my first 100 coins was an additional slap in the face.
i noticed this at fightcaves and other boss areas like dag kings. i remember both areas being huge and intimidating, now they feel cramped and tiny
I've seen the same thing in other games. In Morrowind, if you mod in a higher view distance (distant terrain), you really notice just how small the world really is. You could actually make the argument that it is better with the default - that is what it was designed for and the low view distance, as well as the hilly terrain, really help make it feel much bigger than it is.
In Ragnarok Online, if you use a hacked client, you can zoom out further than you normally could. This allows you to see that the indoor areas for a town are actually all on the same map, placed just out of view of each other. Doesn't make the world feel any smaller - it's actually huge - but it does give you a glimpse behind the curtains.
I always thought it was amazing how different it felt as a kid. I remember it taking FOREVER to walk from Varrock to Fally or even Lumby to Draynor Village! But revisiting it (OSRS), especially with RuneLite being able to zoom out way farther, I noticed that you can pretty much see Draynor Village from Lumby Castle. And it takes just a few minutes to get to Fally...
Really Interesting how memories that seem so vivid can still be so "off"
its bigger than just a matter of taste, its something that disrupts the entire economy in many online games. most of the population wouldn't even get as far as they do without these teleports and would forever stick to safer areas without a higher level guide to show them or community like a guild to show them. which in turn in many of these games gives a lot of life to the economy, especially when you can sell teleports to places and people selling teleports have to then buy currency/catalyst items to perform them. Or simply people offering "protection" as they walk you from one place to another
The walking makes it so much more enjoyable imo it's how you get curious and explore the world. I don't know how many times I wondered off some path and found something I've never seen before.
I remember coming into the town centres and finding players had an entire business around teleporting. You would pay them and they would send you on your instantaneous way. A magic taxi service. It was pretty cool. I'm usually quite mixed when it comes to fast travel. For the most part I prefer not to use it, so in games like Skyrim etc I walk most often. I only start using fast travel if I end up doing a lot of back and forth. Even then I prefer to use the wagon's etc. But with games getting bigger and bigger nowadays and time being more pressed, I find I have to use fast travel a lot more and often I feel that I miss out on whole parts of the game. You don't get to appreciate the scenery as much as you zoom past it towards the 15th fetch quest you have to finish just to complete the dailies.
When I was 10 back in 04, my friends and I thought RuneScape was massive, so my bestie and I took turns planning out road-trips to new regions. The mystique and atmosphere as a child playing this game was only rivaled by something like Majora’s Mask. It lost that, and I’ve tried many times to return to the game, but I’ll always be haunted by the nostalgia.
I recently returned to OSRS, having not played since I was like 14 some 13 whole years ago (oof I hate time). Having to start fresh, it is kinda nice walking to and from everywhere. Sure, the stamina system for running is pretty brutal by modern standards and leveling magic takes time, but it has been fun walking around the world and really feeling just how massive it feels despite how comically cramped it all is in reality. If Jagex stated they wanted to increase the size of the world somewhat to help compensate for how convenient travel is these days I 100% would be on board with that. Still, I find it funny that they feel the need to shvoe all of these fast travel methods into the game when walking from one end of the world to the other takes about as much time as it takes someone to just traverse a major city on foot in World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XIV. Even at its absolute worst OSRS never manages to feel as tedious or padded out by travel despite having just as many QoL traveling options as other MMOs.
As a mild aside, I do think a sprawling world helps give so much life, mystery and sense of community to an MMO. It is a shame that practically no one uses text chat in the game now and you rarely ever feel an attachment to the players around you since everyone is constantly teleporting around. Feels less like an interconnected world at endgame and more like a bunch of levels you individually select.
Cramming in new content into places that are already crammed has served to make locations feel smaller when the distance between them is non-existent. Various parts of Kandarin, Misthalin and Asgarnia are just huge conurbations and has been exacerbated by visual updates that increased draw distances. Heck, Taverley and Burthorpe might as well be one settlement now.
Without running it was a challenge just to travel town to town at a low level. I kind of remember that game loop and it was actually fun. Made everything more strategic.
As someone who bounces between OSRS and RS3, I think they both have their merits, but OSRS is my preferred.
I finally did the OS Construction grind and have an in-game house with teleports all over Gielinor. The cost was high, I still had to unlock the teleport spells for the portals. Then I had to acquire enough runes for 100 casts of each. If the in-game free Home Teleport spell actually took me to my house, I would think this would be the best option for replacing Lodestones.
I have no reason to do this in RS3 with 80 Construction because of the Lodestone network.
RS is an old game. What used to be a fairly well populated world slowly got stuffed with people and buildings, and ways to get around quickly began to trickle in. It had the ability back in its halcyon days to add new areas to offset this, the addition of the Troll Stronghold and Fremmnik areas, the Kharidian Desert, Feldip and Piscatoris just to name a few.
But the current continent is getting full. Those areas eventually got drawn in and bordered off and now are also stuffed with things. OS tried making a brand new continent, but it was half baked from its inception and only now after several years of development and community support is it anywhere near usable, and even then only for those who know it's high level areas and content.
It's just old now. Settled in. No real way to fix it. The only thing that could bring back that spark is a whole new world of Gielinor. New map, new areas, a fresh start and a blank parchment to build on. But that would be making a whole new game, and may end up being a flop and a waste of investment.
This only feels true because 1. we are familiar with the map, 2. we typically teleport around the map which makes accessing places that takes 5+ minutes of walking time instead take three minutes, and 3. we are used to grinding stuff for so long that a 10 minute walk doesn't seem that long in comparison.
There's a reason the only boots to teleport to Rellekka are very sought after. Even though it takes around 3-4 minutes to walk from Seer Village to it, it feels like a huge chore and it's wasting time.
old school has it way easyer for access to teleports with POH. so all you need in osrs is a home telly and you can got anywere
I just recently noticed this while doing the Sea Slug quest in osrs. When rowing out to the guy who's "stranded" on the island you can see Entrana right in the background. I guess maybe there could be sharks in the water so he can't swim the short distance? but he could still yell for help. lol
I've always had mixed feelings about the lode stone network, I like there convenience I think Jagex could have implemented it better by tying to the construction skill as unlocks so that way there is a use to the skill other than gate keepings most quests in modern day Runescape. Compared to Osrs, PoH's feel borderline useless other than the Aquarium and the Costume room now that you can also access it from the bank. Even Guilded alters are kinda overrated compared to what they used to be.
I played a regular account for like 2 weeks because all my friends where playing it. They taught me to go to the GE for teleports and the game felt... hollow. A game where you grind for the grind... i quit and came back after a couple years when GIM came out. Now it feels like i am playing the game how it was intended to be played, and i am hooked
This seems similar to the discussion of fast travel in games like Skyrim. I would say that the easy way out is to just not use the option. Other people will move around faster, yes. But if you have fun while playing, you are winning.
Having played in the early days and more recently with RS3 (and dozens of other MMOs with actually massive worlds), I actually kind of enjoy having the lodestones and that the map doesn't take forever to cross.
Unlike when I had lots of free time when I was younger to play the massive world MMOs, I do not have that luxury anymore - So having a short walk from this place to that place is great for me and the Lodestones help when I end up wondering to much because I got distracted with something I saw while on my way to another city, or when a friend wants to meet in Falador or Varrock.
After experiencing so many games advertising garguantuan maps, devoid of naught but the same 5 enemy mobs and some random rewards in camps, i've learned to appreciate runescape's design. Teeming with unique quests that each tell a story.
I get where you’re coming from. My main MMO is WoW, and I remember the thing with Cataclysm adding in flying mounts for the main areas of Azeroth and the whole debate about world size. Honestly, I never felt that Azeroth was any smaller after that, even with all the teleports I had around the world. That’s because the world itself was just that large and had that much to explore. What I’m saying is that if RuneScape wants to make the world feel larger, I say just make the world physically larger, add more things to do in it that aren’t purely quests.
That awkward moment when Wolf "Mountain" is as high as an 8 story building.
Still pretty daunting when the tallest castles and towers are 3-4 stories
we grew older is the biggest thing to be honest.
Looking back in 2006. I remember grinding my magic level so I wouldn't have to walk.
Just typing this sparked a memory of "taxi" where I would follow a player walking to a different town so I wouldn't have to click. Good friends I only knew for a few minutes and never again.
THAT'S RUNESCAPE
Countless memories, like a whole entire era with long forgotten top players who made music videos, skits and overall just bolstered the community. Simple fun that lasted forever it seemed, one of the few games of my life where i felt my time was not wasted or idly passed
this may sound like fake but I tell you.. it's real.
I've been playing this game for 17 years, 2 accounts in total (because I lost my OG account) but now, at the age of 27, it's my first time buying a membership, since I was a kid I always wanted to explore beyond those damned gates that say "you must be on a members world to do that" but I couldn't because I had 0 money, when I was 18 I opened a New account just to have a nostalgia trip on my favorite MMORPG, I played once in a while but at the end I couldn't make time to play because of my university and work.
Now at my 27 years I decided finally that it was time to explore beyond those gates and it has been a joy, I felt like a kid again and I could not be more happy to finally explore that other part of RS. I love this game, it holds a special place in my memories.
I remember the teleport cool down being of 30 minutes after you used it, can't even imagine not having teleport or being able to run at all
'look how close tuska was to landing near bandit camp'
I wanna point out that this is a world eater, that was so big we were literal ants on her back, and yet her size on the rs world seems tiny. And no, being 'submerged' is not an excuse given how it was done and how the cutscene looked.
100% agree on the home teleport. That was kinda dumb, but not as dumb as lodestones.